The Mystique of Bear Hunting

Bryce M. Towsley

Field Editor

There are three traditional ways to hunt bears, and I love them all.

Your mind has zoned out so it takes a minute to realize that, like a scene from a poorly written book, "suddenly it's quiet … too quiet." The air has become so still you can no longer smell the bait. The birds have stopped singing and even the mosquitoes swarming your head net have lost their buzz. Your "little voice" screams in your head that something is happening but your senses say it's quite the opposite. You stare into the fading light and try to move nothing but your eyes. From the edge of your vision you see a corridor through the brush you hadn't noticed before and at the end is a big, round, black head with tiny, dark, intense eyes. They are staring right at you.

Spot-and-stalk hunts are another kind of tense. There you are on an impossibly steep mountain in melting snow drifts. Each step extracts a big price as you suck in the thin air and wonder where all the oxygen has gone. Two hundred yards to your side, the ground is bare from snow sliding down the mountain as the spring sun warmed it days ago. But you can't walk there among the green shoots because there is a huge bear grazing on them. Fresh from its winter sleep, your binoculars showed its thick coat shining in the sun. You last saw the bear an hour ago, but faith keeps you going and if you can somehow keep your wobbly legs working just a little bit longer you can reach the big log that will mask your approach.

Then there's hound hunting. This fading tradition sometimes is so physically and mentally grueling you feel like a fading hunter. You realize that all the early mornings have taken their toll and there is not enough coffee in Brazil to fix your mood. The frost has soaked through your boots and your feet are cold. Your eyes are gritty, your nose runs and the ridge you're walking seems to go on forever. The view hasn't changed in a long time. The back you stare at has so many chains and leashes slung over a ratty coat the guy looks like an extra from a "Mad Max" movie. He is 20 years older than you and you resent that you can't keep up with him. Then a dog makes a little yelp you can barely hear and everything freezes in place. You watch as the dog turns into a machine, quivering and shaking as his nose sucks up the weak scent. He follows it, stiff-legged, to the top of the ridge and suddenly cuts loose with a howl that shakes the world. A black monster rises from a beech-leaf bed and runs by you looking more perturbed than worried. The movie extra turns loose the other dogs and the decibel level rises. You stand frozen and listening to the music of the hounds as they charge down the ridge. And somebody mumbles that a bear that big won't run far before he trees.

To a bear hunter, any day can become an absolutely perfect one.

How to Think Like a Rabbit

by J. Scott Olmsted,

Editor in Chief

Rabbit fur provides poor insulating qualities.

So think about it: Where would you escape the cold if all you had was a light jacket? Check briar patches and fruit brambles that offer shelter from the wind while remaining open to the warm rays of the January sun.

When hunting thick cover look for their eyes,

not their brown fur, to spot rabbits. A rabbit's shiny, round, dark eyes stand out against the monochromatic gray tones of the places it calls home like a dime on a cow pie.

Anyone who's hunted them knows rabbits are nervous critters, likely to bolt before they need to in the face of danger. When you enter a briar patch walk slowly, then stop, look and listen for about a minute. Then repeat. Your movement will likely flush a bunny from its hide. If not, the silent treatment should convince the critter it's been spotted and it'll make a run for it.

Contrary to popular belief,

rabbits don't exactly run in circles when chased by dogs. They do, however, tend to run within their range. If your beagle jumps a rabbit stand and wait—the dog will chase the rabbit back within shooting range.

Use an improved cylinder choke and No. 6 or 7 1/2 loads

to provide a wide, sufficiently heavy pattern without excessively damaging meat when hunting alone. Beagles push rabbits farther afield; switch to a modified or even a full choke and No. 4 or 6 loads when hunting with them.

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Like the fossilized skeletons of its ancestors displayed in the Smithsonian, a 12-foot alligator can be scary even when it's dead—something that Shooting Illustrated's Adam Heggenstaller learned in person during a gator hunt in Florida. Read More »

1976

The year that Sumner, Mo., erected a statue of "Maxie" to commemorate being the "Wild Goose Capital of the World."

65 Feet

Maxie sports a 65-foot wingspan while resting on a cinderblock building in a community park.

4

The number of cackling subspecies.

fast fact

Black bears feed up to 20 hours per day prior to winter denning to accumulate fat (energy). Adult males may gain more than 100 pounds in just a few weeks when acorn production is heavy. Their diet consists mainly of grasses, roots, berries and insects (75 percent of it, in fact). As omnivores, they also eat eggs, fish, mammals and carrion. But they aren’t very effective predators.